Seer of ghosts & weaver of stories

(You are very much not forgotten)

A new poem, "Origin Story," will be published in Dreams & Nightmares 106 (May), and a new essay, "Being the Dictionary," will be published in an as-yet-untitled anthology of pieces by adult-diagnosed autistic individuals from ASAN (November).

I don't know how many of you who don't follow me on Facebook had explicitly registered this, but I recently moved from Boston, MA to Albuquerque, NM. Six months is, to me, not that long. Once the divorce was finalized in July (already covered in both a previous post and on FB: how James turned out to be a bigoted, cheating, emotionally abusive egomaniac), I relocated for a couple of reasons. One, my dad and stepfamily have lived out here for over a decade, and two, I got a job offer at University of New Mexico.

Not all of my belongings came with me at first, as I had to move on very short notice for both work and personal-safety reasons, but I recently got back all of my books, my two beautiful Peshawar rugs, and my framed artwork, nearly all of which are originals by various of my talented friends. Unpacking and going through my books has meant realizing that there are a number of them, mostly accrued during my hectic Fellowship-and-M.F.A.-year at Boston University, that I haven't even gotten around to reading:

The Middle Ages in Popular CultureChaucer's (Anti-)Eroticisms and the Queer Middle AgesLanguage and Imagination in the Gawain-PoemsLoud Hands: Autistic People, SpeakingLifelodeSwordspointThe Fifty Year SwordBreaking Bad: Critical Essays on the Contexts, Politics, Style, and Reception of the Television SeriesThe Forms of the AffectsSnape: A Definitive ReadingHidden YouthXIII: Stories of Transformation

(The latter three are anthologies in which I have either short stories or poems, but which I have not gotten around to reading in their entirety.)

The events of 2016 took a lot out of me, by which I mean it's a miracle I've kept up with my obligations as they stand. Frequently, I've even had to pick up responsibilities that aren't mine; I'm not the kind of person who can neglect the duties I've promised to execute in favor of faithful blog updates, not even when I'm already taxed to the breaking-point, so pardon my relatively long absence. Even now, I'm recovering from severe viral bronchitis.

My thought is that, since there are twelve books, I should aim to read and review one per month here in 2017. In the past, I would've attempted a book a week, but the realities of working full-time, writing in my spare time, and going into my fifth year of editing at Strange Horizons make that impossible. My kingdom for a Time-Turner.

I know better than to say I hope that 2017 brings better, brighter things, because the simple fact of recent political events indicates that, for most people like me and for most of the people I care about most, it probably won't. Instead, I'll say this: I hope it's a year in which the very fact of our continued existence is the ultimate act of defiance.

* For a full list of publication credits in poetry and fiction, see my profile.

ABOUT

A.J. Odasso's poetry has appeared in an eclectic variety of publications, including Sybil's Garage, Mythic Delirium, Jabberwocky, Cabinet des Fées, Midnight Echo, Not One of Us, Dreams & Nightmares, Goblin Fruit, Strange Horizons, Stone Telling, Farrago's Wainscot, Through the Gate, Liminality, inkscrawl, Battersea Review, Barking Sycamores, and New England Review of Books. Her début collection, Lost Books (Flipped Eye Publishing), was nominated for the 2010 London New Poetry Award and for the 2011 Forward Prize, and was also a finalist for the 2011 People's Book Prize. Her second collection with Flipped Eye, The Dishonesty of Dreams, was released in 2014. She holds degrees from Wellesley College (B.A. in English), University of York (M.A. in Medieval Studies), and Boston University (M.F.A. in Creative Writing). She has served in the Poetry Department at Strange Horizons since 2012.